A place for a tired old woman to try to figure things out so that the world makes a bit of sense.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Fence Building

Yesterday I got an email from Congressman David Dreier (R). He still thinks he represents me, but according to the last time I voted in a congressional election, my ballot assured me that I was represented by Adam Schiff (D). At any rate, Mr. Dreier's end-of-of-the year recap of how hard he worked for me was primarily about the passage of HR 4437, the immigration bill.

Getting Control of the Border

Illegal immigration imposes enormous costs on California, undercuts the rule of law in our country and undermines legal immigration. What’s more, in an age of terrorism, border security is a national security imperative.

With the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, Congress is making our country safer and reinforcing the principle that no one is above the law. The bill is tough, it’s bold and it’s another step towards control of our borders.

While a couple of recent studies indicate that in fact illegal immigrants pay taxes and spend money to the extent that they more than pay their way in this country, Mr. Dreier persists in the belief that they are a drain on the California economy. He also conveniently overlooks the fact that California, like many other states, depends on the illegal immigrants to provide services that the local work force simply can't or won't.

Some of these provisions, as part of a larger reform, might make sense. But none will do much to change the fact that 11 million people live illegally in this country, in an economy that cannot function without them. No immigration bill that fails to realistically approach the country's dependence on immigrant labor will fix anything. A serious bill would have to spell out how people looking for work can come here and, in the light of day, find businesses that wish to employ them. It must illuminate some road to legality for those already here. Talking only about enforcement may play to anti-immigration sentiment in the short term. But unless border security measures are a part of comprehensive immigration reform, the goal of secure borders will always remain elusive. [Emphasis added]

And then there is the pork involved in building that damned fence to the tune of over $1 million dollars per mile.

Dreier isn't exactly a stalwart defender of our nation's borders, even if he sends out press release saying he is.

If all those illegal aliens went home tomorrow, we'd make out OK. You might want to consider whether we want to have an economy based on stoop labor or whether we want to have one based on building machines to harvest lettuce. In the worst case we could import lettuce instead of serf laborers.